


the itsy bitsy spider (has flown too close to the sun)

by ekbirch



Series: here comes the sun (it'll be all right) [1]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Drowning (almost), Gen, Hurt Peter Parker, Hurt/Comfort, Peter Parker Whump, Peter Parker adding a few gray hairs to Tony Stark's head, Peter Parker is a Little Shit, Post-Spider-Man: Homecoming, Pre-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart, citizens of new york being the real superheroes, no beta readers we die like men, the adventures of irondad and spiderson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:13:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23381476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ekbirch/pseuds/ekbirch
Summary: I made a mistake, Happy. I went after Davis like Mr. Stark told me not to, and—and I think I’m in trouble. I—He's cut off by the crackle of bad reception.Happy is babbling reassurances and questions simultaneously, nearly dropping the phone in his haste.Tony doesn’t hear Peter’s reply. He’s already running for the door, suit halfway formed on his body.(Or: After the fiasco involving Zemo and James Barnes, the consequences for Tony's involvement in the ratification of the Sokovia Accords manifest themselves in a battle for the identity and life of one friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.)
Relationships: Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: here comes the sun (it'll be all right) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1682791
Comments: 19
Kudos: 87





	1. and besides, we lovers fear everything

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Wordsmith316](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wordsmith316/gifts).



**The problem with being** a superhero is that you think you’re indestructible. That you’re some kind of shatterproof entity incapable of buying the farm because, _Hey, I’ve got superstrength and accelerated healing and this super cool thing called “spider sense”—it’s cool, Mr. Stark, I promise—and so I am totally qualified to do things no teenager should even consider doing in their wildest fantasies_. This, combined with teenagers’ irrational belief in their own invincibility—an aspect of “adolescent egocentrism,” Pepper told him once (whatever the hell that means)—makes Peter Parker, for all intents and purposes, completely and utterly fearless.

It also adds more than a few gray hairs to Tony Stark’s head.

In part, Peter Parker’s belief in his own immortality is what drove Tony to take away the suit the first time. If only the Kid knew how much that decision weighed on him. No. Tony is glad Peter doesn’t know. Parker already has a survivor’s guilt streak a mile wide; the last thing Tony wants to do is dump more asphalt on that road.

But when Peter’s call on the twelfth of February at 4:38 PM reaches Tony, he would’ve raced a goddamn Subaru down Guilt Trip Lane, feelings be damned. Because at least his heart might not be skipping a beat or ten, tossing him back into the pre-Lexapro days when he was one panic attack away from spilling his marbles all over the floor. At least he might not be clenching his fists so tightly they dig into his skin, creating half-moons in the flesh of his palms. At least he might not be hearing Peter right now, voice high-pitched, shaking, and laced with fear. 

_I made a mistake, Happy. I went after Davis like Mr. Stark told me not to, and—and I think I’m in trouble_. _I_ — He's cut off by the crackle of bad reception. 

Happy is babbling reassurances and questions simultaneously, nearly dropping the phone in his haste. 

Tony doesn’t hear Peter’s reply. He’s already running for the door, suit halfway formed on his body.

* * *

After Zemo and the whole Sokovia Accords fiasco, Pepper, Rhodey, and pretty much everyone involved with Stark Enterprises thought it best that Tony kept a low profile for a while, just until matters settled down a bit. _Impossible_ , some would say. _Tony Stark and low profile are about as incompatible as fire and water_ . _Wait and see. Next month Tony Stark’s latest and greatest will be plastered all over the news alongside his mugshot_.

Tony took the public’s doubt as a challenge. 

_You wanna see low profile_ ? he said one night, after Pepper and Rhodey had cornered him with their (reasonable and well-founded) concerns. _You’re gonna get low profile_ . _I’ll take a page outta Darby Shaw’s book and just…disappear for a while_ . _You’ll see_. 

They’d scoffed, but for the most part, Tony had stayed true to his word. After enduring a veritable conniption fit and a series of dire warnings from the Feds, Tony had retreated to the Avengers headquarters like a turtle retreating into his shell, and remained incident-free for a record-breaking number of weeks. 

Even Pepper would agree: Aside from the periodic international getaway, Tony has kept his hands cleaner than a physician observing surgical asepsis. 

Until now, that is.

In the time it takes Tony to get into the sky, he has utilized every curse, oath, and obscenity in his vast arsenal, and invented a few new ones to boot. Dorothy bobs along in his periphery, trailing behind him like the Goodyear blimp. 

He accesses Peter’s suit with a quick command to FRIDAY (after the Staten Island Ferry incident, Tony had made more than a few adjustments to the suit’s code to render it less hackable by a pair of sophomores armed with a laptop and good intentions), but there’s no need. Peter’s suit is located in his apartment, wholly and infuriatingly unused. 

“That little shit,” Tony mutters. Suit alerts Happy to Parker’s every move? The solution is simple: Don’t wear the suit.

And without it, Tony can’t interface directly with Peter or his surroundings. Even the suit’s basic tracker is useless now. So he calls Peter’s cellphone next. 

He gets the busy signal, probably thanks to Happy, so Tony cuts off Happy’s call and announces his presence with a highly sardonic, “Hey, Kiddo. Have a good day at school?”

“ _Mr. Stark_ ?” Peter squeaks. “ _How—_ ”

“Wizardry, Kid. You know me. Now you wanna explain to me what you’re doing taking on the Cyberman?”

“ _I wasn’t ‘taking on the’—Director Davis_ !” Peter sputters. “ _C’mon, Mr. Stark, you know me. Friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, remember_?”

“I also recall a certain incident involving weapons dealers and the Staten Island Ferry. That sound familiar to you, Spider-Boy?”

Peter mumbles some half-baked excuse Tony knows wouldn’t hold up under a gentle breeze. 

“I’ve heard better excuses from Dum-E, who, by the way, is a robot with zero ability to speak. Now, where are you?”

A pause.

“Jig’s up, Kid. You might as well tell me.”

“ _Well…I’m not exactly sure where I’m at_.” 

Tony cocks his head. “Wanna run that by me one more time?”

“ _I was in a truck! I couldn't see anything_." 

Tony takes a breath, about to make a comment he would most likely regret, when a set of coordinates pops up on the helmet’s display. "Well, according to FRIDAY, you are currently located in the heart of Rikers Island Maximum Security Penitentiary. Want to explain that one to me?"

Peter makes a noise of disgust. " _The Bronx? Are you kidding me_?"

A dozen different blueprints and maps flash across Tony’s view, all delineating the prison from different points of view. "Hate to break it to you, but Rikers’s mailing address includes Queens, not the Bronx. Now stay put, I’m coming to get you.”

“ _Uh…I don’t think I can do that_.”

Tony’s gut is currently trying to twist itself into an Auntie Anne’s pretzel inside his body. “What do you mean ‘you can’t do that’?”

There’s some rustling, and a long moment of silence. “ _Uh oh. Okay, Mr. Stark, I gotta go_.”

Then the call ends. 

Tony curses and directs more power to his suit’s thrusters, propelling him at dangerous speeds toward Rikers Island.

* * *

Located on an island plonked in the middle of the East River, Rikers Maximum Security Penitentiary had once been one of the most feared and reviled prisons in the nation, housing more than ten thousand criminals at the height of its operation. Rikers closed down years ago thanks to the efforts of humanitarian lobbyists and the prison’s bad reputation. Now, the abandoned complex of buildings sprawls over the island, an amalgamation of cement and barbed-wire fence, as bleak and lifeless as the people who were once incarcerated there. 

Thruster power reduced and radar shields active, Tony alights over the prison, scanning for signs of life. Other than a prevailing sense of doom and an impressive array of flora overtaking the compound, nothing indicates Peter, or anyone else had been here recently.

 _Boss, my IR scanner is detecting heat sigs approximately one kilometer below the earth_. 

“Kilometer?” Tony mutters, entering the administrative building with his arms raised, thrusters humming in his palms. “Where are we, Canada?”

 _Apologies, Boss. My meter is detecting an EMF approximately one thousand and ninety-three yards below the earth_. 

“That’s more like it.” Tony’s eyes immediately dart to the closet door in the corner of the room. “FRI, you sensing any traps I should be worried about?” 

_Nothing yet, Boss_.

Tony frowns and opens the closet door. “You sure? This is suspiciously easy.”

 _I’m sure, Boss. You programmed me yourself, remember_?

“My dearest FRIDAY, how could I forget.” The secret elevator is hidden behind a stack of boxes. “I’m getting a secret Russian base, Stranger Things kinda vibe. What do you think?” Tony places his finger on the button to the door’s right and waits for FRIDAY to do her thing.

 _I think you make a lot of pop culture references for a middle-aged man_. FRIDAY bypasses the fingerprint lock within five seconds, and the door slides open with a pleasant _ding_. Feeling like he is walking into an elaborate but very ill-concealed trap, Tony gets into the elevator and presses the only button on the panel.

In the few moments it takes the elevator to descend belowground, Tony debates calling Peter again but ultimately decides against it. If Peter was somewhere he deemed it safe to contact Tony he would. 

The elevator comes to a jolting halt. Calibrating his repulsors to stun, Tony waits for the doors to open, but nothing happens. Frowning, he wedges his gloved fingers between the doors and gives an experimental tug. They don’t budge. This time Tony puts a little of the suit’s power behind his pull. The doors screech reluctantly open.

Behind it lays a setting appropriate for some kind of psychological horror film. The cold, musty scent of a basement fills Tony’s nose, and fluorescent lights flicker overhead, illuminating a long hallway lined with doors. That’s all Tony sees before people start yelling.

Barely five paces from where Tony stands, six men in tactical gear are frozen in place, most likely stunned at the sight of Iron Man walking out of their evidently broken or locked elevator. Then the one in front swings up an military-grade rifle, finger poised over the trigger. 

“You don’t have clearance to be here!” one of them bellows. “Stand down or we will open fire.”

“That’s cute,” Tony says.

He charges forward, batting the rifle aside before the soldier can loose a shot, and hits him with a repulsor blast squarely in the chest. The guy goes barreling into two of his pals.

A multitude of bullets ping off of Tony’s suit, sounding like rain battering a tin roof. Tony dispatches each combatant with cool efficiency until there is only one left—one left by his own design. Apparently this lucky guy is the only one in possession of two brain cells to rub together, because he drops his gun before Tony can do any damage, hands raised in the air. Maybe Tony needs to take something else on top of the Lexapro, because he seizes the man by the throat and pins him against the wall without batting an eyelash. Even after years of being Iron Man, adrenaline still rushes beneath his skin with each fight, a storm of energy firing within him like the connections in his suit.

“Does Ross know you’re here?” the man chokes out.

 _Ross_? “Nuh-uh. I’m the one asking questions here.” Tony loosens his grip enough to allow air into the man’s trachea, but not enough to let him wiggle free. “Where’s the—where’s Spider-Man?”

“You don’t have clearance to be here!” the man protests. “If Ross finds out he’ll—”

“Hey!” Tony’s patience is a rubber band stretched dangerously taut. When he snaps, it’s bound to sting anyone within range. “My repulsors were set to stun for your buddies over there—you wanna find out what happens when I crank ‘em up a notch?” He raises his free arm to accentuate his point.

The man cringes. “I don’t know where the Spider-Man is! Director Davis just told us to guard the elevator to make sure he doesn’t get out.”

Davis. Tony releases the soldier and starts down the hall. He doesn’t look back as his repulsor beam hits the man and knocks him back into the elevator.

 _Boss, there are more hostiles approaching from the right at the end of the hall_. 

Tony kicks aside a limp body and wrenches open the first door to the left. He darts inside and shuts the door just as a cacophony of boots approach, thumping clinically against the concrete floor, and six new heat signatures appear in the hall. There is a general flurry of confused questions as the new contingent rushes to help their fallen comrades.

“This doesn’t look like Spider-Man’s work,” one says, crouching next to a body. “Look at these burn marks here.”

“Well, well…Looks like Davis caught another one,” another voice says. There is a pause, then: “Director, Team Six is down and unresponsive. I believe there is another Enhanced in the facility. Copy that. All right. Jensen, Mendoza: You stay and help Team Six. The rest of us are going to do a sweep of the area, see what we can find.”

Tony moves away from the door as quietly as he can, the boots of his suit thudding traitorously against the…carpet. Soft, muffling carpet. 

“Iron Man?”

Tony’s heart jumps, like it’s just been shocked by the arc reactor. He moves without thinking, spinning around to face the source of the voice, repulsors whirring, prepared to fire at a single command—

Three pairs of wide eyes stare up at him from behind a musty-smelling sofa. The entire room is set up like a living room, complete with a set of recliners and a coffee table littered with old magazines and cups. 

“Tony Stark,” a different voice says. A stout woman with graying hair pulled back in a ponytail and no-nonsense business attire straightens, pinning Tony with an appraising glare. “What are you doing here?”

“Oh, the usual: Kicking ass, taking names…Now”—Tony lowers his arms and flips up the front of his helmet, allowing him an unobstructed view—”What are you doing here?”

“That’s none of your business,” the woman replies archly. “This is government business.”

“How’d you get in here, man?” An older man holding a bag of chips steps forward. “Isn’t this place supposed to be top secret or something?”

“Or something,” Tony mutters. “I don’t have time to play games. Have any of you seen Spider-Man?”

“Spider-Man?” The third individual, a younger boy who reminds Tony vaguely of a Spanish telenovela star, juts out his chin. “Why would Spider-Man be here? Is that what’s causing all the ruckus out there?”

A derisive laugh almost bursts from Tony’s mouth, but the looks on their faces stops him from making a fool of himself just this once. Each of them wears an expression of genuine interest.

“Could you at least tell me what this place is?” Tony asks.

“This is the New York EIRA headquarters,” Telenovela Boy responds.

At the same time, the woman snaps, “Don’t tell him anything.”

“The EIRA headquarters,” Tony echoes. “So that big ugly building in downtown Queens is just a front?” 

“We’re working for the EIRA, genius!” the woman sighs. At the nervous glance of Chip Man, she shrugs and says, “Mateo over here cracked open the can—we might as well spill all the beans.”

Tony’s brain zips into overdrive. The EIRA, or Enhanced Individuals Registration Agency, was created by Thadeus Ross in response to the Sokovia Accords to manage the PR and executive aspects of enhanced registration. In a (rare) display of foresight, someone somewhere had realized the futility of simply demanding that all superpowered individuals hand over their identities to a government which had failed them and/or broken their trust several times in the very present past. Thus, the EIRA was born, and thanks to the monumental efforts of pro-registration borderline-propaganda from the government and some positive PR from Iron Man himself, many enhanced citizens had acquiesced to the government’s plea and signed the Accords. 

That, of course, still left the many civilians who refused to register. And Tony couldn’t imagine that sitting very well with the bigwigs in Washington.

“You say you’re working with the EIRA,” Tony starts. “You wouldn’t happen to be the three missing persons everyone is talking about, would you?”

“We’re not missing,” the woman says. “We’ve simply…gone off the grid for a while.” The other two nod vigorously in agreement. 

Tony glances over his shoulder and scans for traps before stepping closer, folding his arms across his chest. “And you didn’t think three missing people in one month wasn’t going to attract some attention, especially from the hero types?”

The woman blinked, seemingly taken aback.

“What exactly is it you’re doing for the EIRA?” Tony demands. “Have they even told you?”

“We’re helping them make New York safe,” Chip Man piped up, waving his hands emphatically. “Since you guys don’t seem to be able to do it yourselves.” At Tony’s look of confusion, he adds, “My brother was killed in Johannesburg.” 

“And my daughter in Sokovia,” the woman adds. “We’ve all lost things because of you and your so-called heroics, Tony Stark. And now we have a chance to make New York, to make the world safe from people like you.”

The venom in her voice stings, but Tony doesn’t let the wound bleed into his tone. “I know you’re hurt, and I know you’re angry. And I’m sorry about what happened to your loved ones. But taking away all the enhanced people, like Spider-Man, isn’t going to make things better. Can I have some of that?”

Chip Man glances down at the bag he’s holding and proffers it tentatively, like he’s afraid Tony will slice off his hand if he doesn’t. “Uh, sure?”

Grabbing a handful of chips wearing metal gloves is no easy task, but Tony manages it nonetheless. He crams a handful of fried potato crisps into his mouth, savoring the saturated-fat, salt-soaked, carb-loaded goodness for a moment before continuing. “Where was I? Oh, yeah, taking away superheroes won’t make the world better. I’m going to tell you something right now—yes, even while you’re trying to press the panic button or whatever it is you’re doing over there.”

Telenovela Boy—Mateo, Tony amends—whips his hand away from his waist, where a walkie talkie hangs surreptitiously from his belt. “I didn’t do anything,” he vows. 

Tony just shoots him a long-suffering glance. “You’re all from Queens, right? So you must’ve heard of Spider-Man before.”

Mateo nods again, a new gleam of admiration shining in his eyes. “I’ve done more than hear! Spider-Man stopped some muggers from taking my wallet a few months ago. It was the best day of my life.”

“Yeah, Spider-Man sticks up for the little guy,” Chip Man chimes in. “That’s what I like about him.”

“And you.” Tony spins on the woman, pointing at her like a game show host picking the lucky winner of a multi-million dollar prize. “Surely you’ve caught wind of the deeds of the amazing Spider-Man.”

The woman huffs. “Spider-Man saved my niece from getting run over by a bus a year ago.” 

Tony spreads his arms wide. “See? All that good happened because Spider-Man was there. If the EIRA got to him, he couldn’t do any of this stuff without their permission, you understand? His every move would be dictated by the government. And I don’t think any of us wants that.”

“Didn’t you just do all that press for registration not too long ago?” the woman asks, squinting suspiciously. 

“We’re not talking about me,” Tony replies, despite cringing inward with all of his being. “We’re talking about Spider-Man. Think about it.” 

****There’s a long moment of deliberation from each of them. “I never thought about it that way,” the woman grumbles. “I guess I just…I never stopped to think…”

“It’s scary how often that happens these days,” Tony sighs.

“So what are we supposed to do now?” Mateo asks. “Just sit here?”

“Well, yeah.” Tony’s mask slides back over his face with a metallic clank. “I’m going to find Spider-Man. I’ll just take that…”—in one fluid motion, he nicks the walkie talkie from Mateo’s belt—”and get out of your hair.” He starts toward the door, using FRIDAY to scan for heat signatures beyond it. 

“Hey, Iron Man.”

Tony pauses, hand resting on the doorknob.

Mateo grins, all sharp teeth and jagged edges. He hadn’t told Tony what had made him join the EIRA, but he had—and in that smile Tony sees a past shaped by anguish, ambition, and a penchant for destruction.

It’s like looking in a mirror.

“Good luck,” Mateo says. 

“Thanks, kid,” Tony replies, and slips out the door as quietly as he can. 


	2. every lover is a soldier

**With the walkie talkie** in hand, it isn’t long before Tony catches wind of Peter. And even if he hadn’t gained possession of it, he would’ve found his way eventually—the kid wreaks havoc like only a teenager can. 

_I’ve got him. South wing offices. He’s down, but approach with caution_.

The walls resemble the moon in some places, littered with craters and scrapes where something hard had rammed into them. Light fixtures flicker and dim overhead as Tony makes his way into the south wing, guided by signs and a little help from FRIDAY. He reaches a point where the lights are hanging by single cords from the ceiling. More casualties in the desperate hunt for Spider-Man.

 _Boss, my sensors are detecting a bio sig that matches Peter Parker_ , FRIDAY announces. _He’s in the room at the end of the corridor_.

It’s quiet and dark. Much too dark. Tony creeps forward, his shadow mimicking his movements on the wall beside him. 

_We’re getting close, Boss_ , FRIDAY murmurs. _Bio sig matching Peter Parker is getting stronger_.

Then he hears it. 

A low, rasping voice drifts from inside one of the offices. It takes Tony a moment to discern what it’s saying—or rather, what it is singing. 

“ _The itsy bitsy spider climbed up the waterspout_ …”

Tony slips into the bullpen, watching as the hulking shadow of Director Leila Davis detaches itself from the wall opposite Tony and stalks forward, shattered glass crunching beneath her feet. As she moves forward, the details of—and the reason for—her misshapen silhouette are made evident. Unlike Tony’s premium, streamlined armor, calibrated to fit his body perfectly, Davis’s gear seems to dwarf its wearer, giving her the appearance of a child in an adult’s clothing. The armor is clunky and painted standard camouflage, complete with a triangular helmet and a large, round plate fixed to her back that gives her the appearance of an overgrown beetle. 

_Really? Hammer gets ahold of my armor and that’s the best he can come up with_?

Tony follows Davis’s line of vision. His breath catches in his throat, and for a moment it’s like he’s in cardiac arrest again. Peter Parker is curled up in the far corner of the bullpen—mask on, thank God—but making no visible attempt to escape. 

“FRI—”

 _I can’t tell the severity of Mr. Parker’s injuries. I am too far away_. 

Davis draws close enough to Peter that he huddles in her shadow. “ _Down came the rain, and washed the spider out_ …” 

Tony fires up his repulsors, prepared to blast the asshole to kingdom come, but what she says next stops him short.

Director Davis doesn’t pull out a weapon. She doesn’t even call for backup. She just stands in front of Peter, arms crossed over her chest like a disappointed parent. And Peter doesn’t run away. Why doesn’t he run away?

“It didn’t have to be like this, Spider-Man,” she says, enforcing the image of an upset authority figure in Tony’s mind. “If you’d just agreed to register with the UN, signed the Accords, I wouldn’t have had to chase you all over my facility, which is a total wreck thanks to you. I wouldn’t have had to recruit civilians to my cause. And I wouldn’t have had to squash you like a bug.”

“You…” A cough. “You kidnapped those people just to get to me?”

Davis tilts her head. “Kidnapped? No. More like…enlisted in helping me do my job.”

The kid shifts, moving his arm into a prime web-shooting position. “And what job would that be?”

“You think you’re the only unregistered Enhanced in New York? Hell, in Queens?” In a jerky, mechanical movement, Davis throws out her arms. “There are thousands of superpowered bastards infiltrating our country right now, unregistered, untracked, and unregulated. You know what kind of danger that poses to the rest of us? I tried to warn SHIELD, but no one would listen: Too many pro-Enhanced in their ranks if you ask me. Coulson is soft on your kind. It was time for someone to step up.” Davis shrugs, armor shifting on her shoulders like dinner plates. “And now here we are!”

“I’m never going to give my identity over to people like you,” Peter says softly.

Davis shrugs. “I’m afraid you don’t have much of a choice, hon.”

Tony’s heard enough. He steps out of the shadows, palms facing Davis. “Stand down, Davis.”

Peter gasps, “Mr. Stark?” and Tony’s heart breaks a little at how goddamn _young_ he sounds.

“Hey, Spider-Man,” he says, risking a glance in Peter’s direction. “Hang in there. I’m getting you out of here.”

Davis’s armor gives a warning hum. She turns to face him, though she’s careful not to turn her back fully on Peter. “Stark. This isn’t your battle.”

“The hell it isn’t.” Tony moves closer, trying to gauge Peter’s situation, watch out for broken furniture, and keep an eye on Davis concurrently. “You now, when I signed the Accords, Ross failed to mention any sort of underground bunker for holding kidnapped civilians as live bait.”

“He knew you wouldn’t agree with it,” Davis sneers. “Just like you didn’t agree with Rogers’ criminal gang getting stowed away in the Raft. It’s where they belong, Stark. They’re too dangerous for regular prisons.”

Tony rolls his eyes, though he knows Davis can’t see his face. “Oh, yes, and locking them up in some GoldenEye base is such a reasonable response to that.”

“It’s a temporary solution,” Davis insists. “Just until we can find a way to fix them.”

“Fix?” Peter pipes up. Tony glances sideways at him. Peter clears his throat, and asks in a comically deep voice: “What do you mean ‘fix’?”

“I mean make them normal,” Davis snaps. “Make them safe for society.”

“Safe?” An almost derisive note of incredulity filters into Peter’s tone. “I’ve been trying to make society safe, lady!”

“What do you think Captain Brilliant over here was trying to do with Ultron?” She waves her arm at Tony, suit’s operating system whirring dangerously, and the instinct to charge Davis like a linebacker is a living, visceral thing in Tony’s gut. “And look at what happened. The most casualties since World War II.”

“Easy there, Robocop,” Tony warns. “You’re just going to add oil to fire if you try to force Spider-Man to stay here. I don’t think Ross would be too chuffed to find out his newly created division was responsible for the death of an American citizen, and an Enhanced at that.” 

And he doesn’t think Pepper would be too chuffed about hosting their wedding inside of a federal prison if Tony commits second-degree murder. So despite the deepest longings of his heart, he doesn’t blast Davis. Not yet, even as she turns on Tony, eyes hidden behind two yellow-tinted panes.

“This thing destroyed my compound in half an hour, Stark,” Davis says slowly, as if speaking to a child. “Think of what he could do to all of New York if he wanted! Spider-Man has to stay here until he’s deemed safe to rejoin society.” Some of the tension melts from her shoulders as she looks at him, a silent plea shining through her gaze. “I’m sorry, Stark. We were never meant to have wings.”

“It’s not your right to keep him prisoner here,” Tony insists. He moves very deliberately toward Peter, never turning his back on Davis. 

Davis scoffs, and any hint of sympathy vanishes. “Bull. Enhanced individuals receive rights through registration and the Accords. Which you happen to be under, Stark. You can’t just fly in and threaten me with your little light show. So you stand down, and let us take care of this before anyone else can get hurt.”

Tony looks at Davis. Davis looks back. 

“Fuck that,” he says, and hits Davis with both repulsors at once.

Davis soars. She hits the concrete wall with a magnificent crash and slides to the floor in a heap of metal and limbs.

Tony is moving before Davis hits the ground. He falls to his knees in front of Peter, adrenaline coursing through his veins like fire, and retracts his helmet.

“I’m so sorry, Mr. Stark,” Peter is babbling, fingers slipping along the shoulders of Tony’s suit. He’s still wearing his mask, and Tony doesn’t dare remove it, not when they’re deep in enemy territory with zero ground support and hostiles closing in on them from all sides. “I’m so sorry, but those people were missing and I started watching the EIRA office and then Davis got in this truck with one of the missing people and I—” He breaks off in a fit of coughing.

Whatever Davis did to Peter makes the fight in Germany seem like a schoolyard brawl. His suit—the DIY sweatshirt-and-pants combo Tony had mocked so viciously upon their first meeting—is torn and stained beyond repair. Tony can’t see what’s wrong beneath it, but FRIDAY can.

 _Mr. Parker suffers from multiple injuries sustained to the ribs and vertebrae_ , FRIDAY informs him grimly. _Immediate medical attention is advised_. 

Tony should’ve blasted Davis a lot sooner.

“Saddle up, Kid,” he mutters, grasping Peter's forearm in a pre-ambulatory position. “We’re getting the hell out of Dodge."

"But those people," Peter protests, even as Tony is trying to heave him to his feet. "Even if they weren't actually kidnapped, they don't deserve to be used as live bait."

"That's a can of worms for another fishing trip," Tony says, even as Peter makes a noise of dissent. 

He tugs insistently against Tony's grip—a child pleading with his parents at the grocery store. "But Mr. Stark—"

"Hey." Tony fixes Peter with a stare he dreads is an exact replica of the one Howard Stark frequently directly at his son. "I'm not arguing with you on this one. We don't have time for side quests right now. Our first order of business is getting out of here with your identity and our skins intact, capisce?"

Peter seems to wilt in his acquiescence. "Fine. But we have to come back for them."

Tony is so relieved he doesn't take a moment to ponder how exactly he will bring such circumstances about. "Deal. FRIDAY?" 

_Hostile forces have spread out and are converging on your location as we speak_ , FRIDAY announces. _But moving Mr. Parker is not advised. My sensors can’t properly diagnose the severity of his injuries, and his vertebral column has been compromised_ . _For Peter’s sake, your best bet may be to surrender, Boss_.

And give up the kid’s identity? Not a chance. Parker would never forgive him. “Spider-Man, you ready to rock and roll?”

“Yeah,” Peter says immediately. “Let’s go, Mr. Stark. I’m ready.” 

Although Tony suspects the kid could’ve had both legs chopped off at the knees and he would give the same response, he takes it as a good sign that he’s still alert and talking. 

“Dorothy is waiting outside,” he says. He slips an arm behind Peter’s back as Peter struggles to prop his legs up beneath him. He gasps in pain, clutching Tony’s shoulders like a lifeline.

“Agh, God!” Peter draws in a pained hiss and sinks to the floor, arm drawn back an unnatural angle. “Mr. Stark, my back…”

“Stark!” a voice rings out. “We know you’re in there, and Spider-Man, too. Why don’t you just leave the Enhanced to us and we’ll let this one slide, hm?” Silhouettes creep forward on the walls, featuring blocky, pointed objects with which Tony is far too familiar. Tony counts eight heat signatures, and that’s not including whoever is coming as backup.

“Hang on, Kid,” Tony mutters. “This is gonna get dicey.”

A series of metallic creaks, accompanied by a groan of pain, catches Tony’s attention. Davis is climbing to her feet, and though he can’t see her expression he has to imagine it’s a healthy shade of thoroughly pissed off.

“Stark!” Davis shouts. “I’m giving you to the count of three to raise a white flag. One…two…thr—”

“Dazzler!” 

A brilliant flash of light blazes out of Tony’s suit, and the soldier and his comrades recoil, temporarily blinded. Tony activates his suit missiles and sets them loose. They go off with loud a series of loud bangs, like fireworks; not enough power to be deadly, but enough to distract. 

In retrospect, the missiles probably weren’t the most strategic maneuver Tony has ever executed. When the retaliating bullets start flying, he throws up a shield and swings it over Peter, who presses himself as far as possible into the wall, hands clapped over his ears.

Someone is shouting orders, but Tony can’t hear what they’re saying. 

“FRI, can you get us out of here?” he asks. The facility’s blueprints weren’t made publicly available for obvious reasons, but they’ve done enough sniffing around Tony hopes FRIDAY has gathered enough intel to find them a safe and nearby exit. 

_I’ll do my best, Boss_. 

“All right, kid, time to go.” Tony gathers the kid in his arms, ignoring his protests, and unleashes an ultrasonic pulse similar to the one he used on Bucky Barnes in Berlin. Thanks to their protective gear, the pulse isn’t nearly as effective as it was on Barnes. But it’s enough. The soldiers falter for a split second, and Tony seizes his chance. Peter gathered in his arms like a pioneer bride, he charges through their ranks like a bowling ball and streaks into the adjacent hall.

 _Turn left, Boss_!

Peter’s legs scrape the wall as Tony whips left, barreling past a squadron of unprepared guards. 

_Right_ ! FRIDAY commands. _Now left_! 

Tony banks left and hurtles down a flight of stairs at speeds that would give Pepper a mild heart attack. 

“Stark!”

A tremendous crash shakes the ground, followed by the sound of screeching metal and whirring engines. “Don’t make this ugly, Stark!” Davis appears at the top of the stairwell, brandishing a gun that looks like it could’ve been pulled straight out of Mass Effect. 

“I’m not the one making this ugly,” Tony mutters. The staircase spirals, forcing Tony to slow down for fear of shoving Peter straight through the wall. 

_Faster, Boss_! 

“Uh, Mr. Stark?” Peter says. “She’s got a gun. _She’s got a_ —” 

A beam of something white-hot strikes the wall an inch from Tony face, leaving behind a scorch mark the size of a dinner plate. Peter yelps and jerks spastically in Tony’s arms.

 _There’s a door coming ‘round the corner, Boss_! FRIDAY says. _You’ll have to bypass the lock_.

There’s no time to “bypass” anything. Peter tucked under one arm like a football, Tony cranks up his left hand’s repulsor and blasts the door, once, twice—then rams through the weakened steel with the grace and subtlety of a rhinoceros. 

They tumble into a long, low-ceilinged storage unit of some kind, its lighting too dim to make out more than the vague shapes of neatly arranged military vehicles.

“This is it, Mr. Stark!” Peter says. “This is how I got in!” 

"All right, where's the garage door?" Tony mumbles, half to himself. Even with his suit, he feels half-blind, exposed. Vulnerable. 

"Mr. Stark," Peter says in a hushed voice. "She's coming."

Tony Stark doesn't hide. He didn't hide his identity as Iron Man nine years ago, and he didn't hide when Ross approached him with accountability and consequences for his hubris and for Sokovia. But here and now, lugging along the body of a semi-functional fifteen-year-old, he cannot risk exposure. He will not. 

_Exit is fifty yards ahead_. A blue-lined diagram of their current location and their destination blinks to life in Tony's vision.

"Stark?" Davis's voice rings in the silence, bouncing off the vehicles and cement walls. "I know you're here, Stark."

"And circle gets the square," Tony mumbles. He ducks behind the nearest vehicle just as the lights flip on, uniform and clinically bright. And something else turns on, too. All of the vehicles at once, headlights blinking to life like opening eyes.

 _She’s got an EMPD_! FRIDAY shouts. And at the same time:

"Mr. Stark, get out of the way!" Peter flings out his arm and careens out of Tony's grip on a line of webbing.

Tony is not so quick. A military-grade tank slams into him, treads screeching against the ground, engine roaring its mechanical fury. Before Tony can so much as swear, another tank pins him from the opposite side. 

The force of impact knocks Tony's head into the side of his helmet, and stars flash in his vision. For a heartstopping millisecond, all he knows is pressure—even though he knows his suit has taken the brunt of it, and he knows his body is intact and very much unsquashed, his initial thoughts are much less easy to corral. 

A dozen red warning lights blare in Tony's display. _Get out, Boss_! FRIDAY cries. _Your suit can't take much more of this_!

 _No shit_. If Peter weren’t possibly still in the line of fire, Tony would just detonate the suit and call it a day. He can’t even lift his arms.

Davis’s yellow-tinted face shield glow like the eyes of a cloven-hooved denizen of hell. She raises her EMPD—a freaking EMPD—and points it at Tony. Even with the suit, a pulse from this range wouldn’t be healthy. “Sorry, Stark.” 

“FRIDAY, activate the Cannonball feature.”

 _The ceiling is awfully low, Boss_. 

“Calibrate for it, then,” Tony grinds out. “Come on, we’re burning daylight here. Pie-in-the-sky, let’s go!”

 _Activating the Cannonball feature in three, two, one—ejecting_! 

Several things happen all at once. 

In a blur of red and blue, Peter slams into Davis with the skill and dignity of a wet blanket, his webs already netting her EMPD. Tony starts to shout, but it’s too late. 

Propelled by mechanical endo-thrusters, Tony shoots out of his suit like…well, like a round shot from a circus cannon. Thankfully, FRIDAY did her job in ensuring the precise velocity and angle necessary and nothing extra, or else Tony would’ve hurled straight into the ceiling and broken his neck, helmet or not. Even with FRIDAY’s help, his helmet connects with the cement with a metallic thunk, and on the return journey one of the tanks catches him in the side. 

The floor is even less forgiving than the ceiling. He has enough presence of mind to curl up before he hits the ground, but it still feels like being hit by a freight train. The entire left side of his body screams in pain, and for a long moment Tony can only lay there, dazed and helpless. 

“Mr. Stark!” Peter shouts. 

Tony props himself up just in time to see Davis blast a hole in the ceiling the size of a hula-hoop. A second later, the same red and blue blur goes sailing past Tony and hits the side of one of the trucks. Peter slides to the ground like a doll thrown by a petulant child. 

FRIDAY is unusually quiet. Despite Peter’s best efforts, Davis must’ve knocked her out with the EMPD. A glance at his idle suit confirms the fact. 

One minute. That’s how long Tony has to last until the suit reboots. 

“Hey, Decepticon!” Tony staggers to his feet, ignoring the twinge of his left shoulder. “You want Spider-Man? You’ll have to get through me.” 

A swarm of soldiers pours into the garage, guns raised. Davis throws up a hand, and they all freeze, though they don’t lower their weapons.

“Seriously, Stark?” Davis taps her weapon and turns to face him. “You’re not just fighting me, here. You’re fighting Ross, the White House, the whole US government.”

Although his gait has been reduced to a turtle-speed limp, Tony makes it to his destination—standing between Peter and Davis, doing his best to not look like he just crawled away from a fight with a sewer goblin (that he completely and undeniably lost). “And you’re using civilians to unlawfully kidnap Enhanced people.”

“Who—who do you think you are?” Davis demands. “You have no right to do this, Stark. No right!”

Tony shrugs. “You know who I am.” He holds out an arm. 

A tremendous crash explodes to Tony’s left as Dorothy, summoned by a revived FRIDAY, tears into the room like a speeding bullet. Simultaneously, Tony’s suit folds into a compact, corn-shaped capsule and shoots out from between the tanks. 

Tony hits the deck.

Davis shouts and swings up her EMPD, but Tony is prepared for it this time. His suit barrels into the EMPD faster than a MLB pitcher’s ball, knocking the weapon from her hands. 

He is absolutely certain, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that a physical, beating heart abides within his chest, because right now it’s beating so hard he’s afraid it will burst out of his ribcage. As the rest of the soldiers close in, Tony springs into a crouch. 

Then the suit hits his shoes, and everything slows down.

Looking back at the situation, it’s almost scary how easily he handles it. How easily his clinical, calculating mind takes over, drowning out the thunderous cadence of his heart and the panic thrumming in his bones. How he assesses the situation and acts almost without thinking, the suit an innate part of himself, an extension of his soul. How he sheds his own human skin and takes on that of Iron Man—warrior and protector. Avenger. 

By the time he remembers to breathe again, soldiers lay strewn across the garage like trash. A few of them stir feebly; others lie completely still. The vehicles within his vicinity are charred lumps of rubber and metal. 

Tony Stark is an Avenger, and he has indeed avenged.

Davis rages against her cage, repulsor rays and her own body being used in equal measure. Tony would like nothing more than to give her a piece of his mind, but right now he has more pressing matters to attend to.

Dorothy—the medically-oriented alteration of Veronica—has released pieces of armor that have wrapped around their target with mechanical efficiency. Dozens of notifications pop up on Tony’s display as the interface between the new armor and Tony flickers to life, revealing an anatomical outline of Peter Parker’s body. 

_Wow, Mr. Stark_ , Peter’s voice murmurs in Tony’s ear. _This is…really cool_.

“You know me, kid,” Tony mutters. He aims at the other end of the garage and releases an explosive. “Cool is my middle name.”

The missile detonates, blowing a jagged hole into the garage door.

Daylight—precious, brilliant daylight—streams into the garage. For a brief moment, Tony is transported back into that cave in Afghanistan, armed with nothing but the progenitor of the Iron Man suit and a fierce, indefatigable will to live. But Davis bursting out of the cage snaps him thoroughly back into the present. 

Tony takes off, hurtling toward the daylight like a moth drawn to flame. He urges Peter’s suit forward as fast as it will go, but it was crafted with safety in mind, not breakneck speeds. It zips along behind him, flashing stats and diagrams across Tony’s display.

“Stark!” A repulsor ray slams into his shoulder, knocking him slightly sideways. He grits his teeth and plows on, the patch of sky getting bigger and bigger in front of him.

“Mr. Stark! How do I fly this thing?” Peter wobbles dangerously in the air as FRIDAY does her best to evade Davis’s blasts. 

“Hang on, kid,” Tony says. “We’re almost out. Just hang on.”

The blue yawns open before them, a warm, welcoming thing so bright, so vast, so incredibly _alive_. And Tony strains toward it with all of his suit’s power, reaching, hoping, praying. 

They burst into open air and rocket upward, two caged birds finally taking flight. For a single heartbeat, all Tony sees is blue. He sees blue and light and he sees _sky,_ beautiful, clear, winter sky. Then Peter breaks the silence and whoops, his triumph pure and fierce and wholly contagious. Exhilaration erupts into Tony like sunshine as they soar up, up, up, away from Davis, away from Rikers Island, and into glorious light. It’s Peter, Tony, and wide open space for as far as they can see. They’re out. They made it. They’re going home.

“Hey, Underoos, I think I can see your apartment from—”

 _Boss, look out_!

The EMP that hits them is silent. FRIDAY manages is a quick, _Reboot_! before she abruptly cuts off, brought down by whatever device Davis has implemented against her. Tony’s display goes dark.

There is a brief moment where everything is still. They remain suspended in the air, motionless, breathless, the echo of Peter’s laughter still ringing in Tony’s ears. Icarus and Daedalus, having dared to believe they could touch the sun.

Only to find nothing but fire and fury and the fall. 

Then their wings catch aflame and they are plunging toward the sea.


	3. love is the force that leaves you colorless

**After Rhodey’s accident in** Berlin, every one of Tony’s suits had been reprogrammed to deploy parachutes if they went dead inflight. Tony has never been more grateful for them than now. The parachutes deploy just as they’re meant to, unfurling above them like giant white flags of surrender. Still, the sensation of helplessness, of every aspect of his descent being out of his control, makes Tony more than a little apprehensive. 

Comets only have one path, and it is the one Tony and Peter are taking now. 

Peter’s limbs flail spastically even as the parachute releases, and although Tony can’t hear him he knows the kid is screaming. God, is this how Rhodey felt when Vision hit him?

“Peter!” Tony calls, even though he cannot hear him. “You gotta calm down, kid. Landing’s coming up fast.”

He doesn’t have to be an MIT graduate to realize FRIDAY’s boot-up speeds aren’t faster than those at which they plummet toward the East River, and the height from which they fall is not nearly enough to provide the time necessary for the parachutes to sufficiently slow their descent. Teeth clenched so tightly his jaw aches, Tony reaches over and tugs on his parachute lines, drifting himself closer to Peter, just as they both hit the water. 

Tony’s first thought as the cold, polluted waters of the East River close in around him are that he’s definitely going to establish something better than standard parachutes in the suits. They hit the water like two cement blocks and start sinking like them, too, though from Tony’s point of view the river might as well be made of vibranium for all it helps cushion their fall. The oxygen rushes from his lungs in a single, breathtaking _oof_ , and his entire body feels like it’s been hit by that godforsaken Subaru. 

He thanks his lucky stars he installed rebreathers into the suit a while back and inhales raggedly, trying to expand the deflated balloons in his chest that have the nerve to call themselves lungs. White spots dance in front of his eyes, and his head is rapidly filling with cotton, making it difficult to form a cohesive thought. 

But they’re sinking. Still sinking. And he can’t see anything in the murk, not the surface, not the river bottom, not Peter. 

Tony had had the presence of mind to hit the water feet first, keeping the parachute behind him. But what about Peter? 

His worry helps clear his mind. Tony reaches back and releases the parachute, letting it float up like a cloud. 

It’s had to have been a minute, right? Is it possible that Davis could have fried his system? 

“Come on,” Tony mutters. “Don’t flake on me now, FRI.”

A flash of white catches Tony’s eye. Tony squints, straining to see through the murk. It’s Peter’s parachute. And Peter, completely, terrifyingly still.

That’s it. Sucking in a deep breath, Tony braces himself and taps the mechanical release button built into his suit installed following the Malibu incident. Starting at his feet, pieces of the armor begin falling away, dropping to the bottom of the river like scrap metal. The February-temperature river water stabs his flesh like a thousand tiny knives in his skin, but he’s already kicking his legs as hard as he can toward the shred of white marking Peter’s location, hands raking through the water like a blind man. 

His fingers clutch around the parachute fabric and he drags himself toward it. His legs are already cramping, seizing in the icy water. He gropes blindly through the material, searching for the mechanical release button on Peter’s suit. Peter does not assist in any way.

Tony finds the panel on the back of the suit, pries it open, and flips the switch embedded in the metal.  
  
The suit and parachute fall away. Before the suit is completely shed, Tony grabs Peter’s body and kicks upward toward the faint glimmer of sunlight refracting through the water, air already a desperate, aching need spreading through his chest. Even submerged there is no escape from the fire burning his lungs, eyes, and legs, and Peter might as well be a fully grown water buffalo for how heavy he feels. Stars flash in his vision. White noise fills his ears. Tony is suspended in outer space, watching as a nuclear warhead explodes and destroys an alien army bent on the annihilation of earth. But this time he is not alone. This time it’s not just his life on the line. 

With the last ounce of his strength, Tony claws his way toward the light. 

They break the surface of the water, Peter clasped to Tony’s chest just as Rhodey had taught him. Air has never tasted so sweet, not even when he broke out of the cave in Afghanistan, not even when Bruce revived him after he’d fallen through the wormhole. Jaw clenched to keep his teeth from chattering, Peter’s head carefully held above water, Tony gradually stops focusing so much on breathing and more on not drowning. 

A soft gurgling noise comes from Peter, followed by a series of choking coughs. He thrashes with surprising strength, tearing off the tattered remains of his mask and nearly dislodging himself from Tony’s grip. 

“Kid!” A bucketful of water splashes up Tony’s nose as he tries (and fails) to grasp Peter’s flailing arms. “Spider-Man! Peter!” 

That gets his attention. He goes still, arms suspended in the act of throwing Tony off.  
  
“It’s okay, buddy,” Tony says. “You’re okay. I got you.”

Peter can’t talk, not through the water he’s hacking up. But he goes limp in Tony’s arms, allowing him to resume treading water.

“Mr. Sta—Stark,” he gasps. “What happened?”  
  
“Davis got us good, kid,” Tony replies. “We’re kinda dead in the water right now—no pun intended.”

Peter gives a half-wheeze, half-laugh. “It’s s—so cold.”  
  
As if the river heard Peter’s remark, a freezing cold wave slops over them, courtesy of the boats passing by within two yards of their tenuous position in the water. 

“Hang in there,” Tony says. “Someone will see us.”

“Mr. Stark?”

“Yeah?”  
  
“It’s r—really cold—d…”

“Hold on, Peter,” Tony says. He doesn’t let Peter finish. He can’t. “Don’t check out on me now.” 

Indeed, a boat is pulling up alongside Peter and Tony, motor putt-putting along at a measured speed to avoid washing Tony in ice-cold water. Peter doesn't have to ask: Tony wordlessly slips his mask back over his head, just as an old man peers over the edge of the boat. 

“ _Espere_!” he cries. “ _Te arrojaré una salvavidas, bien_?” 

“Yes!” Tony chokes out. “Uh, _si, si! Gracias, muy gracias, señor_.”

A moment later, a life preserver flies over the side of the boat and lands in the water with a soft splash. Tony clutches it, heaving as much of Peter over it as he can, as the man begins towing them in with practiced efficiency. 

Once they draw close enough, the man sticks out a hand over the edge of the boat. He rattles off something in Spanish Tony’s half-frozen brain can’t quite translate. He just shakes his head, gesturing at Peter. 

"Take him," he says. His voice is nothing but a harsh whisper. “Take him now, please…”

To his credit, the man doesn’t argue. He grabs Peter by the scruff of his neck and hauls him into the boat with surprising strength. Then he turns and heaves Tony in.

Tony collapses to the deck, shivering so violently he can hardly breathe. He manages to lift his head to check on Peter, who is curled into a ball next to him, shuddering so violently he’s almost convulsing. 

“Mr. Stark,” he mutters, eyelids drooping dangerously low. “Don’t let…don’t let them see…”

Before Tony can reply, a shadow falls over him, and a second later a blanket is draped over his shoulders, shielding him from the frigid February air. Tony glances up and blinks in surprise. “Could you move? You’re blocking the sun.”

The shadow does not move, and neither does its caster. “He says he saw you and Spider-Man fall out of the sky!" A little girl, maybe five years old, gestures upward. "What happened?"

“The American government happened, kid,” Tony says through chattering teeth. He struggles to prop himself up, facing the man who had rescued them. “I need a phone. Do you have a phone?”

“A phone? Yes, here.” The man pulls a phone—an honest-to-goodness flip phone—out of his pocket and offers it to Tony. 

Tony’s hands are so cold it takes him three times to successfully grasp and flip the device open. His fingers feel like sausages just taken out of an industrial freezer—not conducive to pressing tiny buttons on a tiny screen on a tiny phone. After a frustrating minute of trying and failing to hit the five—the goddamn five!—the man reaches out in a silent offer. 

Relieved, Tony draws the blanket closer around himself and rattles off the number as fast as the man can type. The man hands the phone back to Tony. Tony prays.

 _Hello_?

“Pep.”

 _Tony_?

“Pepper, I need you to listen to me, okay? The feds are gonna show up at the compound at any minute. I need you to stall them. Don’t tell them anything until I get there, all right? I’ll be home soon.”

 _Tony, what’s going on? Is Peter all right_? Pepper’s concern is evident even over the phone. 

“Everything is gonna be fine,” Tony says. “I have to go. Pepper, we’re going to be all right.”

Tony disconnects the call before he can say something he’ll regret. He hands the phone back to the man, who stares at him, brows furrowed. “Thank you, Mr….”

“Villanueva,” he supplies, breaking out in a toothy grin. “Elias Villanueva. And this is my granddaughter, Angelica Villanueva.”

“Abuelo,” the little girl—Angelica—pipes up. “Spider-Man needs a doctor.”

She isn't wrong. Lying on the deck, huddled under another blanket in a sopping mess of red and blue fabric, Peter resembles a drowned rat more than a web-slinging superhero. The urge to peel off his mask, to check and see if he’s all right, is nearly overwhelming. 

As if she’d read Tony’s thoughts, Angelica crouches down and reaches toward his mask. Peter recoils instinctively, his entire frame gone rigid. 

“Angelica, don’t.” To Tony’s surprise, Elias Villanueva gestures at his granddaughter, beckoning her to his side. “ _Déjalo en paz, cariñito_.”

“ _Pero Abuelo, está herido_!”

Almost on cue, a bout of intense coughing seizes Peter. Tony is no medical expert, but he knows bad when he sees it. 

Elias lifts his cellphone. “I can call 911—”

“No!” Tony jumps despite himself at the ferocity of Peter’s tone. One of the goggles comprising Peter’s mask is missing, allowing Tony a good, long look at his eye. Not for the first time, Tony is struck by how much of Peter he can read, like looking straight through a glass window. How Peter’s feelings have not outgrown his body, Tony will never know. 

“Are you sure?” Tony asks. “You…you look like shit.” 

Peter nods fractionally. “I’m sure I’ll be fine. I’ve been worse, I promise.”

Despite Tony’s gut instinct, despite every logical cell in his body telling him to do the opposite, he turns away from Peter to the Villanuevas. "We'll be okay," Tony assures them. "Would you just…get us to land, please?"

Elias looks at Tony. Then he looks at Peter. And he turns and shuffles up to the boat's console and starts the engine. 

“I have a spare change of clothes in the cabin,” Elias says, gesturing at the door between Tony and Elias. “You’re welcome to them.”

Tony glances at Peter, who shakes his head as emphatically as he can manage.

“You—you take them,” he chatters. “I still can’t—I still can’t feel much anyway.”

If Tony’s concern were an ember burning in his gut, Peter had just dumped a gallon of gasoline onto it in a fit of arsonic glee. 

“You kidding me?” Tony says. “This shirt alone is probably worth more than your yearly allowance. It has to be specially dried and hung to keep it from wrinkling permanently. And don’t get me started on my shoes. These babies will—”

“Okay!” Peter puts up his hands in defeat. “I’ll go change.” 

But when he tries to stand, all he can manage his a spastic jerk of his legs and a muffled grunt of pain. Tony moves to help him, but Angelica beats him to it. She offers him her hand.

“On three?”

Peter nods. 

“One…two…three!”

Peter lurches to his feet and makes it two steps before he falls. Luckily Tony is there to catch him, draping an arm over his shoulder and dragging him along the best he can to the cabin. 

Inside the cabin is much warmer than outside, and also much smaller. Peter inhales a ragged breath, then coughs some more as Tony dumps him on the mattress taking up nearly the whole cabin and goes in search of the spare clothes. He finds them quickly enough, tucked in a cabinet beneath the berth—a pair of worn jeans, a t-shirt, and a long-sleeved flannel. Without thinking he throws them at Peter, who barely manages to catch the bundle before it hits his face. 

“I’ll keep watch,” Tony vows, and turns his back on Peter to allow him a little privacy. He waits a minute before he speaks again, a little smirk playing across his face. “Remember Staten Island Ferry?”

“How could I forget?” Peter asks, sounding a little breathless. “You bought me those Hello Kitty pajama bottoms.”

“Considering the circumstances, I thought the Hello Kitty pajama bottoms were very appropriate.”

“Yeah, yeah, no need to rub it in.” Peter’s breath catches, and Tony has to physically restrain himself from turning around to check on him. 

“How’s it going back there?” 

“Fine,” Peter squeaks. “It’s a little hard to breathe, is all. I probably broke ribs or something.”

“Broke ribs,” Tony echoes. “And that’s just a normal everyday thing for you?”

“You know, you get banged up a little every now and then. It’s all part of the job.” Whatever Peter’s doing now sounds akin to a first-time marathoner during the last leg of the race. 

“Part of the job, huh?”

Apparently something in Tony’s voice alerts Peter to his decided lack of enthusiasm, because he quickly tries to backtrack. “I mean, I’m not helpless, you know. I have superpowers, which is the one thing you don’t have.”

“The revolutionary technology and enormous contributions to the scientific community weren’t enough for you?” Tony can’t help but retort, a little miffed at Peter’s dismissive tone.

“Don’t get me wrong, the tech is great,” Peter assures him. “It’s just…I’ve got these powers, Mr. Stark. I can climb up skyscrapers, lift things ten times my weight. And when you’re like me, when you get hurt, you get back up. Or else no one will.”

At this, Tony can’t help but give Peter a dirty look. “God, you’d give Steve Rogers a run for his money.” 

Peter’s tattered, ravaged suit lays on the floor, more a pile of rags than once-functional superhero suit. Peter is wrestling the jeans around his ankles. The shirt dwarfs Peter, who looks more than ever like a small child, lost and confused. 

“Uh, Mr. Stark?” Peter mumbles. “Could you…um—” 

“Oh, for Pete’s sake—literally.” Unwittingly reminded of the days with his nanny, Tony seizes the jeans and hefts them up. 

“Ow. Thanks, Mr. Stark.”

“No problem, kid.”

Peter has assumed fetal position on the berth, half-lying, half-sitting, which Tony can't help but think isn't very conducive to good air exchange. He still sounds like a chainsmoker diagnosed with advanced COPD, wet hair plastered to his head, air rattling in his lungs. 

“Here.” Tony grabs one of the pillows from the end of the bunk. “Can you lie straight?”

“Yeah.” Jaw clenched, Peter shifts so he’s lying on his back, fists clenched at his sides. Moving his legs seems to take the most effort; it takes him a moment to align them with his torso, then another moment still to recover enough to straighten them out.  
  
The second Peter is in a position that remotely resembles supine, Tony sticks the pillow beneath his knees, elevating them off of the mattress. 

Peter lets out a long breath through his teeth, some of the tension melting from his shoulders. “Thanks, Mr. Stark.”

His eyes are half-closed, chest moving rapidly, shallowly. Tony resists the urge to prod him, examine him for malfunctions like one of his robots. 

_Peter is not your kid, Tony_. Pepper’s voice, like a lighthouse in a storm, flickers to life in his memory. He’d confided in her after the whole Vulture affair, managing to work in enough complaining to give a psychiatrist fits. Between tinkering with a potential new suit (“The Iron Spider has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?”) and preparing himself for a cycle of media engagement regarding his collaboration with the mysterious Spider-Man, Peter had very much been at the forefront of his mind. Even at three o’clock in the morning. Especially at three o’clock in the morning.

“I mean, he’s gonna do what he’s gonna do,” he rambled as he stuck a 5/32-inch Allen wrench into a panel on the back of the suit’s neck. “He’s a kid, that’s how kids are. Disobedient, disrespectful, reckless—”

“So they’re like you,” Pepper finished, one elbow propped on his workstation. She rested her head in her hand, endearingly casual in a cream sweater and leggings.

“Like me?” Tony said in mock indignation, struggling to twist the Allen wrench and grab the soldering iron at the same time. “Pepper, the kid is certifiably insane. What do you think I was doing at sixteen?”

“I try not to think about it.”

“I was neck-deep in robotics at MIT,” Tony continued, barely registering Pepper’s remark. “And I was so far up my own ass I couldn’t have seen past myself if I’d wanted to. And here’s this kid, c—cavorting”

—”Mhm, cavorting, that’s a big word”— 

”around Queens, hell-bent for leather, in a red-and-blue onesie. And that’s not the only thing: Mr. Incredible over here thinks he can take on hardened criminals—criminals with guns—because he bench-press a couple extra pounds and has sticky fingers.” By the time Tony stops to take a breath he’s elbow deep in circuit wires and clenching the wrench between his teeth. “Who does that, Pep? Tell me that doesn’t sound crazy to you.” 

“Tony, I need you to listen to me, okay?” 

The allen wrench falls out of Tony’s mouth before he remembers it’s there. “I am listening. When am I not listening? I listen all day, every day—hell, I probably listen in my sleep—” 

“Tony. Peter is not your kid.” 

Tony lets out a long breath, turning off the soldering iron before he inadvertently burns his hand. Pepper is sitting up straight now, wearing her seriously-serious face and looking at him with those knowing eyes.

“I know that,” he says, slapping the iron down with a little more force than necessary. “I know. But he is _a_ kid. And a damn good one, too. Which is why I can’t help but feel…” He taps his chest over the spot where the arc reactor used to reside. “I gave him that suit, Pep. And then I took it back, and now I’m doing this”—he gestures at the suit behind him—"because I know…"

"Nothing you could do would stop him from doing what he thought was right." Slowly, Pepper stood so she was eye level with Tony. She tapped his chest with her fingertips, a gentle smile playing across her face. "It's what's in here…that’s what makes him a hero." Still smiling, she pressed a kiss to Tony's lips, short but sweet all the same. "Now come to bed. You can finish the suit later.” 

He didn’t voice his next thoughts. He knew better than most that being a superhero didn’t mean he was invincible. 

A gentle rap at the door snaps Tony’ from his reverie.

“We’re almost at the dock,” Elias says, voice muffled. “Best be ready to get off.”

Peter is still breathing like an asthmatic having the mother of all attacks and Tony can’t help but think that he might not be telling the whole truth about being “fine,” because he is Peter Parker and he has a heart bigger than his brain. Rising slowly from the tiny bench across from him, Tony watches Peter carefully, all ten of his perfectly manicured nails ravaged by worrying teeth. 

“Hey.” Tony shakes him gently. “Rise and shine, Spider-Man.”

Peter’s eyes open, gazing blearily up at Tony. Immediately, his entire face tightens with pain. Tony’s heart twists in sympathy. 

“How you feeling?” Tony asks. 

“Like I got run over by a truck.”

“Well, that’s probably not far from the truth.” Fighting back a grimace, Tony plucks Peter’s mask from the heap on the floor and hands it to him. “Mask on, Underoos: It’s showtime.” As Peter slips his sodden mask back on, he makes a noise of disgust. 

“It smells like a wet dog died in here.”

The remainder of Peter’s suit tucked into a plastic grocery bag, Tony helps Peter, who is hunched over like Quasimodo, to his feet. Peter leans heavily on Tony, limping so badly he can barely walk, and Tony starts to fear he will have to carry him the rest of the way. But Peter’s nothing if not a A-grade trooper through-and-through, and he makes it out onto the deck without collapsing or complaint. 

Elias side-eyes them from his spot at the wheel, and Tony can’t help but notice how his shrewd gaze rests on Peter longer than he thinks proper. Angelica stares at them, thumb stuck firmly into her mouth. 

“Hey, I never thanked you for helping us,” Tony says. 

Glancing at Tony over his shoulder, Elias replies in measured Spanish that Tony half-understands after a moment of careful deliberation. Even so, he looks to the little girl—Angelica—for assistance. 

"He says he saw you in Sokovia," Angelica translates, regarding him with an unnervingly solemn expression. "You picked up a city and let it fall.”

Tony can’t bring himself to look at Elias now. 

“You let your fear get the best of you, Mr. Stark,” Elias says. “And I fear it will be the end of us all.”

A sigh escapes Tony’s lips. “You and me both, buddy.”

Perhaps Elias notices the grimness of Tony’s voice, because he huffs out a rasping laugh. “Hey, I wasn’t about to let you drown,” he says with a shrug. “Especially not when you are helping Spider-Man.”

“Spider-Man saved my uncle from being robbed,” Angelica tells Tony. “He’s very brave.”

Tony nudges Peter, grinning in spite of himself. “Hear that, Spider-Man? Angelica thinks you’re brave.”

Peter lets out a half-wheeze, half-chuckle. Even though Tony can only see one of his eyes, he can tell Peter is smiling. “Really?” 

Like a pallbearer at a funeral home, Angelica clasps her hands across her front and nods solemnly. “Really.”

With what seems like monumental effort, Peter turns his head and mumbles in surprisingly decent Spanish, “ _No soy tan valiente como tú_.”

Angelica’s face lights up with a one hundred-watt smile. 


	4. love is a kind of warfare

**Twenty minutes and countless** words of gratitude later, Tony is cramming a half-comatose Peter into the back of a pickup truck possibly older than Queens itself. 

“Are you sure we can’t take you to the hospital?” Elias asks as he climbs into the driver’s seat. 

“Yep,” Tony says. “No hospitals.” Still wrapped up in the woolen blanket, Tony starts to haul himself onto the seat next to Peter, but a tug on his sodden blanket stops him short. 

“I have to sit in the back,” Angelica tells him sternly. 

Elias shrugs at Tony’s questioning glance. “ _Es verdad_.”

As he traipses around the front of the vehicle, Tony looks back toward Rikers Island, half expecting to see a fleet of tanks racing to plow them down where they stand. They need to get off the street, away from these people, and fast.

“Where to, Mr. Stark?” Elias asks cheerfully. The truck’s engine turns over with a series of coughs almost as pitiful as Peter’s, and Latin music blares through the speakers.  
  
“Ah…” There’s no way they’re making it back to the compound in a timely fashion, not in rush hour traffic, and especially not in Elias’s junkheap of a vehicle. 

“Mr. Stark, the suits?” Peter says tentatively.

“Small potatoes, Spider-Man,” Tony replies, even as it pains him to say it. “Suits I can make more of.” 

Davis well and truly fried his suit’s system—the microrepeaters, FRIDAY, everything. He guesses it’s a lucky thing the EMPD, or whatever it was, was directed up toward the sky or Ditmar Steinway’s power plant might’ve been taken out as well.

“I can’t believe she did that,” Peter says. “Just…shot us right out of the sky.”

Tony can believe it all right. He’s already started formulating exactly what his next call to Thadeus Ross will sound like. Then again, Rhodey has helped him understand how difficult it is for one to have divided loyalties—especially where the government is involved. “Politics are a bitch,” is all he says. 

Elias laughs. 

Tony’s in the middle of cataloguing adjustments—a mechanical switch that removes everything except the helmet, stronger shielding against electromagnetic weaponry, a floatation device that doesn’t rely on the suit’s AI to deploy—when Peter speaks up, again talking in relatively decent Spanish. 

Tony doesn’t catch the whole thing—something about taking them somewhere?—but Elias nods and merges onto I-678 South.

They’re silent for several minutes, allowing the Latin music and rumble of the engine to lull them into comfortable silence. But the quiet is punctuated by Peter’s perpetual coughing.

During a particularly violent coughing fit, Angelica leans over and taps Peter on the back. “You don’t sound too good.”

“I’m fine,” Peter insists breathlessly. “I just took a dip in the East River in the middle of February. It was cold, I got cold, but I’m fine.”

And it’s such a Tony thing to say he can’t help himself. Tony turns around in his seat, pins Peter with a raised-eyebrow glare, and says, “You say you’re fine, but if you’re not there are going to be some people who are very upset with you.”

Silence. After that, Peter’s coughing diminishes, though it’s probably because he stifles it and not because he’s recovered by any measure. And as time wears on, it becomes apparent where exactly they are headed.

He twists around in his seat so he can gauge Peter’s response and says, “You sure this is a good idea, Spider-Man? Eyes are everywhere, you know that.” 

Peter barely reacts beyond a slight twitch of the shoulders. “I know,” he murmurs. “I just…I want—” 

And Tony knows what Peter wants. He knows because he remembers what he wanted in those last seconds of the Battle of New York, having bought a one-way ticket through a gateway through spacetime, even as absurd and puerile as it may have seemed. 

“I get it,” he says, cutting off Peter’s stammered response. “We’ll go there.”

At Peter’s instruction, Elias maneuvers his way into the residential portion of Queens, congested with people travelling their evening commute.

They’re just passing by some dingy gas station when an idea dawns on Tony. “Stop here,” he says suddenly. “This is it.”

Elias pulls over onto the side of the road and does a decent job of parallel parking. He looks back at Tony through the rearview mirror, thick brows drawn low over his eyes. “Are you sure you don’t need me to call someone?”

“I’m sure,” Tony assures him as he climbs out of the front seat, feeling his age more than ever as his feet hit the pavement. “We’re just gonna get Spider-Man somewhere he can rest and recharge.”

Getting Peter out of the truck is about as fun as it was stuffing him into it. His legs are still ominously spastic, and his chin is speckled with fresh blood. But even as Peter grinds his teeth against whatever vicious pain ails him, he pulls against Tony and back toward the Villanueveas. “Wait, Mr. Stark.” He sticks his head back into the truck, one arm propped against the doorframe. “ _Muchas gracias por su ayuda. Jamás los olvidaré_.” 

“ _Mantente valiente_ , Spider-Man,” Angelica replies, waving at him from her carseat. 

“ _Mantente valiente_ , Angelica,” Peter replies, standing a bit straighter.

Elias’s gaze is fixed on Tony. “ _Mantente valiente_.” 

Tony has never been one for heartfelt goodbyes. He gives Elias a curt nod instead, hoping the action will convey what he cannot speak aloud.

The outside corners of Elias’s eyes crinkle, like Tony just told a joke. “ _Vaya con Dios_ , _señores_.” Then Tony slams the truck door shut, and the Villanuevas chug away with a cough of the engine and a puff of exhaust. 

“I can’t believe we wasted all their gas,” Peter mumbles. 

“Don’t worry,” Tony says as he pivots to better support Peter, ignoring the wary glances of passersby. “I got his license plate.” 

“Mr. Stark,” Peter whispers. “People are staring.”

“Yeah, I noticed.” Watchful of the vehicles passing in and out of the gas station, he guides Peter into the building and to the restroom, which looks like it hasn’t been cleaned since before Peter was born and smells like it too. But at least it’s empty. 

He lowers Peter to the floor, ignoring his muttered _gross_ , and patted his own pockets for spare change. “Take off your mask,” he orders, throwing down the plastic bag carrying Peter’s suit. “I’ll be right back.”

Peter’s face scrunches up in distaste. “Aw, Mr. Stark—” 

“Ah—no arguing! And don’t touch anything, it’s gross in here.” Extracting a few boggy dollar bills from his pocket, Tony squelches out of the bathroom and shuts the door firmly on Peter and his sputtered protests. 

A small purchase and a short verbal exchange later, Tony reenters the bathroom bearing a baseball cap, a pair of sunglasses, and a few other supplies his twenty-five dollars and eighteen cents barely covered. “How do I look?”

Peter glances up from where he’s propped against the wall like a mop, arms wrapped around himself like they’re all that’s holding his body together. “Like a homeless person who just crawled out of the harbor.”

“Cold, Parker.”

“What do you want me to say?” Peter spreads his arms in a defensive gesture. “Just because you’re wearing sunglasses and a hat doesn’t mean you suddenly don’t look like Tony Stark.”

“Unbelievable. The audacity of young people these days.” Tony holds up a bottle of extra-strength Tylenol and rattles it. “Normally I tell kids it’s bad to do drugs. But just this once…”

“Gimme that!” Peter snatches the bottle from Tony’s hands snaps off the lid, and downs an uncertain number of tablets before Tony can so much as offer him water. 

“Good thing they take soggy dollar bills here,” Tony remarks. “I—” That’s when he notices the blood. A crimson sash, staining the back of Peter’s shirt. 

Peter’s eyes widen. “Mr. Stark—”

“Yep. So we’re taking you to the hospital.” How could he have not seen it earlier? Peter must’ve done a good job of hiding it.

“Mr. Stark—”

“I’m sorry, I must’ve been mistaken,” Tony snaps. The beginnings of a magnificent headache are dawning in the back of his skull, pounding like the beat of a distant drum. “I thought we had a thing, you know? If things go south, you call me. You call me if things go south. You don’t—”

“Mr. Stark!” Peter is too pale under the harsh white light of the restroom, and too damn small. “Please, don’t do this, okay? I can handle this.”

“This is why I never had kids! This is why I never—” 

Nope. Too far. 

_Get a grip, Stark_.

Letting out an exasperated huff, Tony holds up one finger. “You can’t walk”—a second finger unfurls—”you’re in excruciating pain”—and the last—“and you’ve got a bloodstain the size of a baseball bat on your shirt, which’ll be hell for your aunt to try to get out.” 

“You gotta stand with me on this,” Peter begs. He’s started sliding down the wall, too weak to hold himself up. “When Aunt May found out, she said I could do the Spider-Man thing as long as I didn’t get in over my head. If she sees me like this she’s gonna flip.”

“‘Gonna flip?’” Tony echoes indignantly. Peter’s brow creases, and Tony turns away from him to collect himself, carding a hand through his damp (and rapidly graying) hair. “Oh, we’re way past ‘gonna flip,’ Parker. We’re a mile up shit’s creek without a paddle. Look at yourself! You’re—you’re wilting, like a daisy! And it’s not just your head on the chopping block, here: My head’s gonna roll, too. Your aunt is going to have both our heads on a shiny silver platter.”

“Please, please don’t take me to the hospital,” he pleads. “I’ll do whatever else you say. Just don’t take me to the hospital.”

Great. Tony holds up a hand and Peter falls silent. “I’m not going to argue with you,” Tony says. “I won’t take you…yet. But promise me that when your aunt finds out, you do whatever she says, bar none. No backtalk, none of this lip you’re giving me. Got it?”

Peter nods, and Tony is suddenly stricken by how utterly exhausted he looks: the shadows entombing his normally bright eyes, the droop of his head, and the slump of his shoulders, like the whole world has suddenly been dumped on his back. 

Tony has a good idea of what that feels like. 

“Come on, Spider-Man,” he mutters, crouching to leverage Peter to his feet. “Let’s get you home.”

* * *

It’s a good thing Peter’s apartment is only a few blocks away from the gas station, or they never would’ve made it. Peter’s legs finally give out once they make it to the building. Tony has to basically drag him into the elevator, earning a few odd glances from observers but otherwise encountering no further obstacles. 

“Floor?”

“Seven. Mr. Stark, you’ve been to my apartment before.”

Tony’s shoulder is aching from where he hit the cement in the garage, but he refuses to let go of Peter based on an irrational fear he can’t delineate aloud, but generally translates to _If I do not maintain a physical connection with this child at all times, he will either melt into a pile of goo or go into cardiac arrest._ He's pretty certain that if he shows up at the apartment with May's coding nephew in hand, she might stop Tony's heart for good. 

“You expect me to remember every little detail about every person I meet? Grow a brain, Parker. I’m an inventor, not a robot.”

Apparently this placates Peter enough he doesn’t say another word until they reach the apartment door. Tony fishes Peter’s key out of the soggy pocket of his onesie (“C’mon, Mr. Stark, it’s not a onesie!”) and unlocks the door.

“May?” Peter calls tentatively as the door swings open. “Aunt May, you home?”

When only silence answers, Peter’s shoulders sag in relief. “She’s still at work.”

Breathing harder than he cares to admit, Tony drags Peter through the kitchen and lowers him onto the couch with a barely-suppressed old man grunt, then helps him move into a position he finds most comfortable—which happens to be on his side, facing the couch back. 

Tony rolls his shoulders, trying to ease the strain in his tendons and muscles. “Now that we’re all settled, let’s take a look at that back.” 

Peter is either too tired or too hurt to argue. Neither option gives Tony much comfort as he helps Peter tug the flannel up to his neck. A vivid curse slips from Tony’s mouth as he takes in the damage. 

Peter’s entire back looks like raw steak. Where it isn’t lacerated and leaking blood it’s angry reddish purple, and where it isn’t that it’s a sickly shade of bleached-skin. Peter’s back rises shallowly and rapidly with each breath, and he still sounds like a pneumonic on his deathbed. Tony is no Bruce Banner, but he knows bad when he sees it. 

“Parker”—Tony drops the shirt, hiding the mottled skin—”you are one magnificent mess.”

“There’s a bag of peas in the freezer,” Peter offers in a small voice. 

“Peas?” Tony echoes. “Peter, _peas_ aren’t going to take care of the bloody gouge in your back. How’s the pain?”

“The Tylenol helped.” But then Peter’s face scrunches and a shadow falls over his eyes, like a curtain has been drawn over some part of his mind. “I think I’m okay. But my suit…”

Tony hands him the grocery bag, and Peter extracts his phone from it like an EOD tech disarming a bomb. 

“Man, May’s gonna kill me.” Peter stares at the black screen of his phone. “This is the third phone in two months.”

“What happened to the other two?”

“The first time it was crushed when I fell while I was swinging. The second…” Peter shakes his head, red staining his cheeks. "It doesn't matter."

“Real smooth, Parker.” Tony looks around the apartment, a sense of deja vu overtaking him as the memories of his first visit come flooding back with distinct clarity. Peter hadn’t been home yet, and Tony had been flirting with May. It's almost funny: Tony never realizes how displaced he is from reality, with his artificial intelligence-run flying suits and more money than the IRS could shake a stick at, until he's thrown directly back into it. Sure, there are aliens and gods and monsters, but this—homework scattered on a table supported by uneven legs, claustrophobic living quarters, the smell of chicken cooking in a crockpot—this is Peter’s life. This is a behind-the-scenes look at your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. 

“Hey! Take off your shoes.” Peter glares at him out from under a blanket he's somehow procured, flapping his arm accusingly in Tony’s direction. “May’ll kill me if you get mud on the carpet.”

Tony kicks off his shoes without complaint. It’s a relief to be removed from the arctic bogs comprising his insoles anyhow.

“There should be some dry clothes in May’s closet,” Peter says. “I don’t think she’s gotten rid of them yet.”

When still Tony hesitates, Peter rolls his eyes in a distinctly adolescent gesture of annoyance. “Mr. Stark.”

Tony cocks his head, a smirk playing across his face despite his best efforts to conceal it. “Mr. Parker?”

Peter raises his eyebrows. “I’m fine.” 

“Sure you are, kid. And if you so much as twitch a muscle, I’ll superglue your ass to the couch.” Tony walks past the bathroom and into a small room at the end of a hall. It’s messier than he would’ve assumed, bursting with bright colors and posters and relics Tony recognizes from the 80’s. Tony makes a beeline for the closet. It’s just as cluttered as the rest of May’s room, and it takes Tony a moment to find what he’s looking for—an old Metallica tee and a pair of worn jeans in a box labeled _Ben_ in big, swirling letters. He changes quickly and heads back into the living room. 

Tony can hear Peter coughing from the hall, but the second he reappears Peter stifles it as though the whole apartment weren’t smaller than Tony’s living room. 

“Ben had a good taste in music,” Tony remarks. He rummages around in the freezer and emerges with the aforementioned bag of peas. Peter tries placing it at various spots on his person, unsure of which injury needs the most attention, before shoving it against his back, of all places, and hunkering down on it like a hen on her brood of chicks. His eyelids flutter. “Ah, that’s better.”

“How’s the cut?” Tony asks. 

Peter shrugs, and winces. “Normally stuff like this stops bleeding by now. I guess that dunk in the river must’ve messed up my accelerated healing.”

“I imagine that dunk in the river must’ve messed up a lot of stuff.” Tony pins Peter with a knowing stare. A silent battle of wills commences: Peter flustered and annoyed and trying his hardest not to hack up a lung, Tony concerned and annoyed and trying his hardest not to seize Peter by the shoulders and shake some sense into his undeveloped brain. Is this how Rhodey feels whenever Tony does something ill-thought out and ill-advised? It’s a wonder the man still has all his marbles.

But if Tony is anything, it’s persistent, and finally Peter tips back his head and closes his eyes in defeat. 

“The first aid kit is in the kitchen.”

“Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?” After making a stop at the sink to wash his hands, Tony retrieves the kit, a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, and a towel off the dish rack, then settles himself on the ottoman placed at the end of the couch. “All right, Spider-Man, let’s get this over with.”

Peter groans softly and props himself up against the padded arm of the couch. “You sure you know what you’re doing?”

“Believe it or not, I’ve been in my own fair share of scrapes over the years.” Tony busies himself sanitizing his equipment. “Although most of the time, it’s Pepper or Happy doing this for me.”

“Happy?” Peter echoes incredulously. 

Tony douses a gauze pad with a copious amount of peroxide. “Hey, cut the guy some slack. Downton Abbey and foreheadedness aside, he’s stronger than he looks.”

“It’s kinda funny”—Peter grunts in frustration, necessitating Tony’s help in getting the flannel unbuttoned and tossed on the floor—”he seemed so, y’know…serious when I first met him.” 

An absentminded hum slips out of Tony’s mouth as he, preoccupied with trying to figure out the best way to instigate what will certainly be a highly uncomfortable procedure, at last rallies his thoughts around Peter’s statement well enough to make a coherent response. “Happy takes his job seriously, is all. And don’t take offense to his fussing: he was just butthurt that he was stuck babysitting.”

“I guess that makes sense. I—Wait, babysitting? I’m not—” Peter yelps and flinches at the sensation of the hydrogen peroxide touching his skin. 

“Easy,” Tony says in what he hopes is a soothing tone. “Just getting this cleaned up.” The worst laceration scores a deep gash across Peter’s back, starting at his left shoulder blade and ending somewhere on his right side. Every time Peter inhales it splits, and Tony gets a good look at the little tissue Peter has on his back. 

Peter’s head jerks in what Tony assumes to be an affirmative gesture. “Yeah, okay. Just get it over with.”

So Tony does, in fact, get it over with, but not without a steady tirade of rambling (courtesy of Tony), some spilled peroxide (courtesy of Peter), and a great deal of cursing from them both. After what feels like an eternity, Tony finally leans back and says, “I think this is as good as you’re gonna get.” His heart is racing the one-hundred meter in his chest, and whatever figure his blood pressure is at, it can’t be good for his health. He tosses aside the Kleenex he’d been forced to use when he ran out of gauze and studies his work with a critical eye. 

A strange metallic crunching sound comes from Peter, who lifts his arm with a small huff of distress, revealing a cellphone which, while it had not been functional earlier, at least had been in one piece, now lay in many fragmented pieces in Peter’s palm. “Aw, man.”

“No need to flex on me, Parker,” Tony says dryly, using the moment to hide his trembling hands. “I know you’ve got superstrength and all that.”

After a few abortive attempts to piece the phone back together, Peter gives up and dumps the fragments into the grocery bag. 

“All right!” Tony pulls out the needle and sutures, ignoring the way they make his gut shrivel into the size of a bullet. “You ready for step two?”

At the sight of the needle, glinting sinisterly in the artificial light, Peter blanches. “Nuh uh. No way.”

Irritation inexplicably pricks at Tony like the needle he clutches in his sweaty palm. “Come on, you’ve never had anyone do this to you before?” As Tony sets to threading the needle, his lack of the usual gadgets and tools really starts to make itself evident. The idea of having to actually use the needle on human flesh is making Tony feel like he’s going to toss his cookies.

“What?” The look of anxious dubiety on Peter’s face is almost comical. “No! Mr. Stark, when I told you I was a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, I meant it. I’m not…I’m not helpless.” His gaze seeks Tony’s, imploring. “You know that, right?” 

That’s it. Tony’s had enough. Maybe it’s the stress, maybe it’s the fact that he’s had this pent up inside him since 4:38 PM, when Peter first called Happy—whatever the case, Tony’s feelings are a bottle of Coke shaken up by an zealous sixteen-year-old superhero, and he just twisted the cap. 

“Yeah, sure I know that," Tony starts. "Except I also don’t. Parker, what the hell were you thinking, sneaking into Davis’s compound? Oh, wait, you weren’t. I—ouch!” Tony jerks his hand away from the offending needle, his fingertip stinging where the needle point had pricked it.

“I didn’t know what was going on!” Peter protests. “No one knew where they went, Mr. Stark. And no one was looking for them.”

“Did you ever think there was a reason for that?” Tony demands, probing gingerly at his injured finger. “Davis arranged for them to disappear! She didn’t care about them; she wanted you!”

“I know that now!” Peter says indignantly. A cough builds in the back of his throat; he fights to speak around it. 

“Do you know what the Accords are?” Tony asks. “You know what that would mean for you and your little gig they found out who you were?”

“Yeah, you’re the one who wanted them in the first place!” Peter snaps, then turns to hack into his arm. 

“You don’t think I know that?” Tony grits out. “You don’t think I don’t regret what I did every single—” Tony snaps his mouth shut, clenching his jaw so tightly it aches.

It takes a moment, but Peter’s coughing fit finally dies down. His face is red, not from belligerence, but from lack of air, and the shadows around his eyes, hollowing his face, have only seemed to grow. “Look. I’m sorry, okay? I shouldn’t have snuck into Davis’s compound, I shouldn’t’ve been investigating those people I thought were missing. I really messed up.”

Aw, God. The kid who barely has a driver’s license is man enough to apologize for his mistakes, while Tony sits here choking on his own pride? No way. Besides, Tony spent enough of his life arguing with his father; he doesn’t need to do the same with Peter, especially not while he’s bleeding out on the couch. _Face the music, Stark. You screwed up_. 

“Yeah, we both did, kid,” Tony sighs. Thoughts of Pepper, of the Feebs marching into her office and demanding the location of one Anthony Stark, makes his skin crawl with discomfort. But Pepper is nothing if not resourceful; she’ll find a way to beat around the bush until Tony can get back to the compound. But right now… 

Exhaling conclusively through his nose, Peter squares his shoulders the best he can. “Okay, Mr. Stark. Go ahead.”

“Right. Well”—Tony dabs some numbing ointment around the wound, eliciting a soft sigh of relief from Peter—”when this is all over, you’re going to have one wicked scar to show for it.”

“Man, that’d be so cool. But I don’t really scar. All a part of the accelerated healing, you know?” 

“Hm.” Tony’s holding the needle in one hand and the sutures in another, trying to recall with precise clarity the technique which Pepper, Happy, and even Rhodey had implemented on him. They always started at the worst part and worked their way out from there. Tony swallows, wipes his palms on his borrowed jeans, and leans forward, wishing there was more light than just the lamp sitting on the side table next to them. “On your stomach, kid. Let’s get this done, yeah?”

The second Tony starts he instantly regrets not taking Peter to the hospital. Every time Peter breathes—which is a lot because he’s in pain and the supine position is not conducive to good airflow—the wound moves, forcing Tony to cease the procedure lest he poke something he’s not supposed to. And both Peter’s back and Tony’s hands are slick with sweat, providing almost no traction when Tony tries to lift the skin with a pair of tweezers he found on May’s dresser. 

To his credit, Peter takes it all like a champ, burying his head in a pillow and wiping his watering nose and eyes on the back of his hand. About halfway in, Tony’s eyes feel like they’re on fire, and his right hand and neck are cramping like he’s spent all night poring over one of his nanotech projects. He squints in an attempt to get the stitches to slide back into focus. 

“God, Mr. Stark,” A half-sob, half-laugh shakes Peter’s shoulders. “You look so _old_.”

Tony pauses. “Excuse me?”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry! But you, like—” Peter shifts his head back, giving himself a magnificent double chin, and squints in an absurd imitation of Tony.

“Are you delirious? That is not what I look like,” Tony says, though a snicker threads its way through the question. “Did all that Tylenol give you liver damage? Uh, what’s that called, when you go all loopy because your liver’s jacked up…?”

“Mr. Stark, you and I both know that out of the two of us, you’d be the one with the liver damage,” Peter says. His laughter causes the gash to part again.

“Settle down, Spider-Man! You’re gonna ruin all my hard work.” 

Peter settles, and Tony continues his work. 

He’s about three-fourths of the way finished when Peter pipes up, his voice an octave higher than usual, “You almost done?” 

“Yep!” Tony lies brightly. “So, I never got a chance to ask…How’s school going?”

“School…is fine,” Peter grinds out. 

“Come on,” Tony cajoles. “You gotta have more than that. Teachers treating you all right? Stand up to any big bad bullies, woo any pretty girls…”

There’s a pause, and Tony can tell Peter is debating whether or not to tell him something. Finally he speaks up, and his voice is softer, less taut. “There is this one girl…”

“Isn’t there always?” 

The tips of Peter’s ears are flaming red. “I wish you could meet her, Mr. Stark. She’s so smart and funny and knows some of the weirdest, randomest stuff nobody else ever even thinks about…” 

“You ask her out yet?” Tony asks. He’s so preoccupied talking to Peter he stabs himself (again) with the needle and curses under his breath. 

“No?” Peter stages it like a question. “We’ve known each other for, like, forever, and I feel like it would be weird if I all of a sudden just, popped the question on her, you know?”

“You’re not asking her to get married, Peter,” Tony says. “What’s the worst that can happen?”

“You don’t know MJ,” Peter says. “If she doesn’t like me Like That and I ask her out, she’ll—I don’t know—decapitate me and hang my severed head outside her apartment window for everyone to see.”

“Peter…”

“The ancient Celts used to do that, you know,” Peter continues. “They’d take their enemies’ heads, embalm them, then nail them to their houses like potted plants!” 

“I’m assuming MJ told you that?”

Peter nods solemnly. “Mr. Stark, I don’t want to be a potted plant.”

“All right, kid. If you’re so worried about it, then don’t. But you know, this life we lead, it ain’t all fun and daisies. You’ve gotta weigh the possibility of telling her and being rejected, and never getting the chance to because…well, you know how it is. One minute you’re swinging around the city, fit as a fiddle, and the next you’re lying on your couch letting some mechanic sew up a six-inch gash in your back. ” Tony finishes the last suture with a triumphant “Hah!” and sets the needle and tweezers aside, shaking out his arthritic-feeling hands. “And we’re done!”

“Great!” Peter exhales, eyes fluttering closed. “That was The Worst.”

“It isn’t lights out yet, Parker,” Tony says. “We got through the fire, now we gotta put it out. How many washcloths do you think you have?”

Peter’s replying groan is muffled by the pillow he’s buried his head in.

With Peter’s (reluctant) guidance, Tony retrieves a bowl of warm water, a bottle of soap, and several towels. He sits back down and begins the tedious process of prising bits of rock and metal out of Peter’s skin, and cleaning it with a washcloth dipped in the warm water. 

“What’d you do, roll around in a gravel pit?”

“Yeah, Mr. Stark.” Peter’s voice catches as Tony pulls a particularly stubborn piece of something from Peter’s shoulder. “You know those gravel pits…they can be really unforgiving on someone like me.” 

“I don’t…I’m not sure I’ll be able to get all this out myself,” Tony confesses. He’s seen some pretty big messes before, but most of the time they aren’t attached to human flesh. “I have stuff back at the compound that would probably help, but right now the place is probably crawling with Feds who’d like nothing better than to throw my ass in jail, so…”

“No compound,” Peter finishes. “It’s all right, Mr. Stark. I’ll jump in the shower later and it’ll all wash out.”

If it weren’t so life-threatening, the kid’s endless optimism would almost be endearing. “How’s it feeling?”

Peter clears his throat. “Have you ever gotten welder sparks in your eyes?”

A snort makes its way out of Tony’s mouth before he can stop it. “Do you know who you’re talking to?”

“Yeah, sorry. Imagine that, but in your skin. I—” Peter cuts off as another bout of coughing seizes him. Peter’s spine arches as he struggles to draw in a breath, one arm struggling to hold himself up from the couch, the other clutching his ribs. 

“Here.” Tony helps nudge Peter into a sitting position, wincing internally as Peter gasps in pain at the movement. 

Peter hacks and chokes for so long Tony is afraid he won’t stop. His gaze is worriedly fixed on the delicate stitching he had just painstakingly applied, expecting it to tear at any moment. Finally, though, the coughing subsides. Peter is left trembling, both arms wrapped around his middle, wheezing around whatever gunk is still stuck in his throat and lungs. 

Peter scrubs a hand across his mouth, inhaling a deep, shuddering breath, then wincing as the motion aggravates his ribs. “Did I…” His voice comes out hoarse and wet. He clears his throat and tries again. “Did I tear the sutures?”

“Lemme see.” Tony probes experimentally at the reddened skin. 

“Hey!” Peter cringes away from Tony’s exploratory fingers. “Don’t poke at it!” 

“Well I gotta look, don’t I?” Forgoing his examination, Tony grabs the antibiotic ointment and twists off the gummy cap. “Looks fine to me. I’m just gonna slap some more of this stuff on it.”

“Yeah, but don’t—” Peter cuts off suddenly, staring at something beyond Tony’s field of vision. Tony twists around, heart in his throat. 

“Hey, Aunt May.” Peter's voice is very, very small.

A grocery bag slips from May’s hand. Items hit the floor with a cacophony of clanking, thumping, and crunching.

“ _What the_ —” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for reading! By the grace of God alone I'll have the sequel published this year. Until then, comments and kudos are much appreciated.
> 
> Your obedient servant, Em


End file.
